This year it was the first time that I participated at this event. Rapperswil-Jona is just 15 kilometers away from my home. I pass it every day on may way to the office. It is a very nice city at lake Zürich with a port for small ships and a lot of nice restaurants just near the lake. In summer you feel like being somewhere in Italy when you sit in one of the Restaurants at the lake.

At the triathlon we were there employees from our company and I took over the biking part. It was great. I had to do 90 kilometers, 2 turns and were not bad. I were able to overtake approximately 50 bikers and I was not overtaken by one. That was real fun.

I always dreamed of once doing triathlon but had not the time to train swimming. Therefore it was pretty luck that we did it as a team. The distances were 1.9 kilometers of swimming. Ugly! When you were looking from the start to out over the lake to the point where they had to swim to, it was unbelievable so far away seemed it.

This year I was already on top of Mythen for the first time. I did the walk with my new sticks. The last time I have used sticks is years ago. Must have been in Austria, when I was young. I bought them for walking with my new snow shoes and can use them also in summer.

There were already a lot of people on top of Mythen, as always on Sundays. I walked with my sticks and arrived on top after 59 minutes. Thats good for the first time in the year.

Down I needed about 40 minutes but was much to fast. I should not walk so fast on this mountain. It is too dangerous for running. And every year 1 or 2 people have an accident and die on this mountain. Unbelievable but some of the people try to climb the mountain with summer shoes. Thats foolish.

This year it was much better than last year. There were two things: first we booked breakfast in the hotel just in front of the start and had morning buffet in a the warmth.

This was the problem the last years. It is impossible to find a warm place in a restaurant. All restaurants are over and over crowded with people who had cold.

Which contrast this year: warm breakfast room with buffet, as much coffee and bread and butter as you can eat and that just in front of the starting area.

The second thing much better this year was the slope. The snow was cold and the ski was running. I was able to do the marathon in 3 hours 30 something I think (forgot the exact time) and was not a bit as much exhausted as last year.

Once again you can find me on top of Speiereck. This year I was alone. Last year my brother was with me.

From the end station of the ski escalator it is only about 10 minutes to the top of the mountain. I took my skis to the top to ski down on that back side through deep snow.

On top I made a 360 ° movie from all the mountains you can see from there. The view was great. Double click on the image on the right side to start it.

I have been on top of many of the peaks you can see on this movie. Of course in summer and not in winter. But in winter it is more impressive. Some of the mountains are almost or even more than 3000 meters.

By the way, I have a new MacBook Air with iMovie software to create small movies. the 360 ° movie was done with my iPhone. Click here to see the movie.

Mauterndorf, where I was born, has an impressive castle. In the castle, there is a historical museum and a restaurent. We went there with my parents and my brothers family to have dinner.

You can easily walk there from my parents and brothers house. Its just about 10 minutes because the caste is really nead the center of the village.

When we walked there, it was already heavily snowing, giving the castle a very nice look. In winter, the caslte is decorated with some lights which convinced me to took this foto.

Dinner was also very good and not expensive. You can even have an old “Ritteressen” there. If you order this with a group you will be served from servants dressed in old clothes which were worn at the thime of the knights.

Lungau is the county I was born and grew up. It is in the middle of Austria, in the moutains. There is nothing special. No industry, people are living from farming and some tourism mainly in winter.

I spent a week there with my family end of this year and the first couple of days in the new year 2012. Normally I do only alpin skiing when I am there because the skiing areas are quite good. But this time, I brought my cross country skis with me and did more cross country than alpin.

There is one very nice slope beginning in Mauterndorf, my home village leading through calm wood to the next village and from there even further deep into a valley which is closed in winter for cars and can be accessed only by skis. I shot the picture over there, after it did a lot of snow overnight. Its a very nice slope, very nice.

There is a new kind of sky scrapper in Zürich since end of last year. It is located very convenient. It’s at train station “Hardturm” and you can just leave the train and almost enter the building.

In one of the upper floors, there is a restaurent called “Clouds”. Very impressive! It offers a restaurent, a bar and a launch. We went to the bar. The restaurent was fully booked for the next couple of months.

In the bar, luckily we got a place directly at the window from where you have an impressive view over Zürich. You can look to Zürich Main Station and see trains coming and going. They look like toy trains. Very funny.